CIS-PPM Project Portfolio Management Practice Questions
Prepare for CIS-PPM with more than an answer.
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- v1Version 1 233 questions Locked
- CIS-PPMLegacy Certified Implementation Specialist - Project Portfolio Management 151 questions Current
- Exam fee
- $450 USD
- Time limit
- 90 minutes
- Questions on the exam
- 60
- Passing score
- Not publicly disclosed (varies) (scale 0-100%)
- Level
- Implementation Specialist
- Valid for
- Annual maintenance required
Domains covered on the exam 9
- PPM Implementation Overview2%
- PPM Application Overview22%
- Idea & Demand Configuration21%
- Project Configuration22%
- PPM Teamspace Configuration2%
- Resource Management Configuration17%
- PPM Financials8%
- Time Tracking Configuration5%
- PPM Performance Analytics, Reporting & Dashboards2%
- 1
True or False: A single project can be associated with multiple portfolios simultaneously.
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Correct answer: B
False. In the standard ServiceNow PPM data model, a project (
pm_project) has a single reference field pointing to its parent portfolio (pm_portfolio). Therefore, a project can only belong to one portfolio at a time. A project can, however, belong to a program which in turn belongs to a portfolio. - 2
A PMO director wants to establish a financial baseline for a critical project after the initial budget has been approved. What is the primary purpose of creating a financial baseline for a project? (Select TWO)
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Correct answer: A, C
A baseline is, by definition, a fixed snapshot of the cost plans at the time of its creation. It represents the approved budget and scope.
The key value of a baseline is to compare it against the current planned costs (forecast) and actual costs to calculate variance, which is a critical indicator of project financial health.
- 3
A project manager on a long-running project has set a dependency: Task B (Finish-to-Start) must start after Task A finishes. Task A's planned duration is 10 days. On day 3, the project manager realizes Task A will now take 15 days and updates the planned duration. If the project's calculation mode is set to Automatic, what is the immediate impact on Task B's planned start date?
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Correct answer: A
With Automatic calculation, the project plan is updated in real-time. Since Task A's duration increased by 5 days, its planned end date is pushed out by 5 days. Due to the Finish-to-Start dependency, Task B's planned start date will be immediately recalculated and also pushed out by 5 days.
- 4
Case Study:
A healthcare organization, HealthFirst, is using ServiceNow PPM to manage the development of a new patient portal. Due to regulatory compliance, time tracking must be extremely accurate, and all time charged to the project must be approved by both the project manager and the resource's line manager.
The organization has a rule that time sheets must be submitted weekly, by Friday at 5 PM. If a time sheet is rejected, it must be resubmitted within two business days. The system needs to automatically generate time sheets for all allocated project members at the beginning of each week.
Currently, project managers are complaining that they have to manually remind their team members to submit time sheets, and line managers are often unaware that they have pending approvals. The PPM administrator has been tasked with automating this process as much as possible.
Which configuration actions should the administrator take to address these issues?
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Correct answer: B
This is the comprehensive, best-practice solution. Time Sheet Policies are designed to handle generation and submission rules. The approval workflow is the correct place to configure the multi-level approval chain and build in automated notifications for pending approvals and reminders for late submissions, directly addressing all the stated problems using out-of-the-box mechanisms.
- 5
A demand manager is reviewing the Demand Workbench. They want to filter the list of demands to show only those in the 'Screening' state that are assigned to the 'IT Infrastructure' portfolio. How can they achieve this and save the filter for future use?
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Correct answer: B
The standard ServiceNow list functionality, including the condition builder (funnel icon), is available on the Demand Workbench. Users can build complex filter conditions, apply them, and then use the filter options to save the filter for personal use or share it with a group.
- 6
A financial services company is implementing PPM and has a strict requirement that all project budget forecasts must be reviewed and approved by a Finance Director if the forecasted variance exceeds 15% of the baseline. This approval must be captured before the project can move to the 'Work in Progress' state. Which ServiceNow component is the most appropriate for implementing this specific, conditional approval requirement?
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Correct answer: C
The Project Management Workflow is the designated place to handle state transitions and approvals. A custom approval rule can be configured to trigger based on a script that calculates the forecast variance. This ensures the approval is formally requested, tracked, and required before the state transition occurs, which is a more robust and auditable solution than UI policies or standalone business rules.
- 7
A resource manager observes that the Resource Allocation Workbench is loading very slowly, especially for long-term projects spanning multiple years. The underlying issue is the real-time calculation of resource availability and allocations. To improve performance, the system administrator needs to ensure that pre-calculated data is being used. Which table must be populated correctly by a scheduled job for the workbench to leverage this performance optimization?
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Correct answer: D
The
resource_aggregate_dailytable (and its weekly/monthly counterparts) stores pre-calculated summaries of resource capacity, allocations, and availability. The Resource Allocation Workbench is designed to query these aggregate tables for performance gains, rather than calculating from rawresource_planandresource_allocationdata on the fly. If this table is not being populated correctly by the 'Update Resource Aggregates' scheduled job, the system falls back to real-time calculations, causing performance degradation. - 8
A Program Manager is using the Investment Portal to compare several projects within their program. They want to visualize the projects based on their calculated Net Present Value (NPV), associated strategic priority, and total planned cost to make funding decisions. Which visualization tool within the PPM suite is specifically designed for this type of multi-attribute comparison of demands or projects?
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Correct answer: C
Bubble charts are the primary tool for visualizing and comparing multiple demands or projects against several dimensions simultaneously. The X-axis, Y-axis, bubble size, and bubble color can all be configured to represent different metrics like NPV, cost, risk, or strategic priority, making it ideal for the Program Manager's analysis.
- 9
A PMO wants to ensure that every project created for the 'Compliance' category automatically includes a standard set of tasks related to legal review and data privacy assessment. The dependencies between these tasks must also be pre-defined. What is the most efficient way to implement this requirement?
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Correct answer: B
Project Templates are the out-of-the-box solution for standardizing project creation. A template can contain a pre-defined work breakdown structure, including project tasks, dependencies, milestones, and even associated resource or cost plans. This is the most efficient and maintainable method for enforcing a standard project structure.
- 10
A PPM administrator needs to configure the Idea Portal to allow users to vote on submitted ideas. However, they want to prevent users from voting on their own ideas to avoid bias. Where is this behavior controlled within the platform?
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Correct answer: D
The behavior of the voting mechanism, including whether users can vote for their own ideas, is controlled by a system property. Specifically, the
com.snc.idea.allow.creator.votingproperty must be set tofalseto prevent idea creators from voting on their own submissions. This allows for configuration without the need for custom scripting.
